


Alcibiades

by demon_dream



Category: Boku no Hero Academia
Genre: Character Study, Crossdressing, Dubious Morality, Gen, Kaminari the fabulous metrosexual, Narcissism, Plot What Plot, and look great doing it, but he will fuck them up for giggles, easily could be though, he won't sell anyone to Satan for one corn chip, headcanons, i don't like that tag but nobody searches "externally calibrated morality", not a villain I swear
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-12
Updated: 2018-07-12
Packaged: 2019-06-09 14:15:32
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,437
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15269244
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/demon_dream/pseuds/demon_dream
Summary: Kaminari knows he's a little strange, but he's also determined not to bend himself into knots over the fact that he can kill a man with little remorse and less effort.Not that he has. But he could.Besides, he'd never hurt the only people who seem to genuinely like him and put up with his... antics.More like experiments, but that's such a harsh word....he's going to hell, isn't he.





	Alcibiades

   Kaminari has no idea when it started, and it's a little terrifying how casual that thought is. Birds fly. Water is wet.

  
   There's something off with his brain, something expected that isn't there, even if he can't point to it.

  
   It feels like missing a step when you leave a building. It feels like putting a puzzle together, and then realizing that even if the shapes fit perfectly the pictures don't line up. It nags at him like a loose tooth, mild and not really amounting to much, but he can feel _something_ and can't stop poking at it. He's never learned to read Braille, but he knows it's a type of script, and feeling around in his own head to pin down an abstract concept feels a lot like running his fingers over those barely-visible mystery dots.

  
   He runs his fingers over the little strips beneath the plaques at school a lot, and wonders how the hell he'll play it off if someone asks why.

  
   He's probably more comfortable in his own skin than he should be, really, the fine line between confidence and self-aware narcissism tricky to mind, but he's only this cocky because nobody _questions_  it. He flirts around, plays pranks, makes a fool of himself. He controls the opinions of those around him with opportunistic glee and clinical observation, cold eyes over a dopey grin, and he really wonders why nobody has called him on it. If they've noticed. If they _haven't_  noticed. Is he just that good, are they just that dismissive, is it actually not that important?

  
   He dances around the speed bump in his brain and doesn't want to look very hard, but at the same time he can't stop. He's always had a bit of a thing for people. Not like Kirishima, the unofficial mom-bro. Not really like Midoriya either, with his centrifuge brain whirring 24/7 and breaking down people's quirks like a man possessed.

  
   (Who knows, he might be possessed, the world is weird and Midoriya manages to be weirder.)

  
   He has a thing for people, for picking them apart and understanding, but not quite vivisection and not quite for thoughtful friend reasons. He likes spending time with people, but not because he likes the people in question. He can't spit out the reason even inside his own head because he's so very, very conscious of that missing piece in his head, but sometimes honesty hurts... even when it doesn't actually hurt? He's losing track of his own analogies.

  
   He likes _reactions_.

  
   He likes reading people, and then shaking them up to see what happens. He likes understanding the responses intellectually, but he also just likes to fuck with people. Not even just in ordinary ways, like whoopee cushions or harmless little lies, but the sort of things that in a more formal setting might be called social experiments. Staring at the sky fixedly for an hour to see if anyone will mimic him. Going to a cafe and pretending to have been stood up on a date. Messing with the lights at random to see who screeches. Picking a neighbor's lock when they aren't home and then waiting to see how they respond to that, if they respond.

  
   Kaminari likes people the way a scientist likes rats, but he also knows that that's a terrible way to think. He lives if a world of superheroes, for crying out loud, he knows all about ideals and morality and how his personality doesn't fit the bill. It sort of hurts, but not in a personal way. It's not disappointment in himself or even with the system. He just... knows he _should_  care about people, and he doesn't, and he cares about that even if it doesn't exactly torment him.

  
   He's not some heartless monster. He grins at the sight of Uraraka and Tsuyu painting their toenails and asks if he can join, because he has a fabulous metallic orange he can share and he's admittedly a bit of a beauty nerd. He sees Midoriya wilting over his morning OJ and rescues him from spilling the glass on his pants, because saving him from that embarrassing wake-up call suddenly seems very important. He takes on the role of detangling Iida's uptight knot of rules so class bonding can happen, and also because Iida doesn't seem to know how to relax without someone giving him guidelines. He likes being helpful and having fun, win-win all around.

  
   His darker side isn't really a _side_ , more just a part of his personality that is mildly inconvenient and unfeasable given his goals. Getting people to trust you isn't easy if you, say, go to jail for breaking an entering, or for mutilating someone's hand, or if you do too many hands-on experiments with electricity. And he wants people to trust him, obviously. He likes being trusted, and he also likes the advantages that trust brings. He can't decide if that's classically immoral though.

  
   Again, he's not _heartless_. He would never hurt an animal, the thought is ridiculous. He wouldn't make his classmates cry, at least not the students of 1-A. He may not be at all invested when Tooru comes up nervously and asks for advice about dressing to impress, but he can definitely understand. Plus, emphasizing the good looks of an invisible person was a fun challenge, and he knew her personality was adorable enough that she hardly needed his help to begin with. Loaning her a bit of confidence and some of the jewelry in his trunk was easy enough, and the blush on Ojiro's face? So worth it.

  
   He cares, and he doesn't, and he's not sure what to do about it, or even if he _should_. Sure, he's not normal. But surrounded by people who literally blow up at everything or who treat laughter like some foreign heathen language, people who have less respect for secrets than he does while still being essentially good.... is he _bad?_

  
   No, obviously not. Bad people are malicious, and while he might get fixated on immoral things he never acts on them. At least, nothing like _crushing someone's orbital floor_  or holding an entire building of minors hostage, what the hell. One, rude much? And two, hello shit list of the most powerful heroes in the world, this is the League of Villains. They're all walking dead men.

  
   They also hurt his classmates, which. He's not exactly a territorial person. He's never really understood "mama bear instincts". But.

  
   Suddenly he's found a thin but viable excuse for some of those... not quite _social_ experiments that float through his brain.

  
   In the privacy of his room he paints his eyes with dark smoke and gilds his lips with sienna orange, bangles jingling at his wrists. He would use red, like the blood of angry men, but it would look terrible with his coloring. He twists the lid of the mascara back into place, tugs at the edge of his artfully ruffled coffee-colored blouse, and fingers the coil of copper wires hidden beneath the hem. It's a theoretical weapon. It's all theoretical. It's all very, very inappropriate for a bright young hero to have or consider, but even the availability of this option soothes something poisonous in his chest.

  
   He looks good, like this, approachable and naïve. Dressed up and unprepared for the consequences. It's not like his quirk is blatant, his skin hasn't ever scarred. It's not like a pretty little thing in a skirt could kill a man through the hand groping his ass, could fry a brain with a kiss. He's never had to, but the weapon is there to use. Just like the copper garrote wire sitting pretty around his wrists.

  
   Sometimes he likes to doll himself up and feel the potential, like taking out a loaded gun just to weigh it in his hand. He could shoot. It's not a question at all, and not something he needs or requires talking down from. No one really needs to know. But he is capable of this, and sometimes he reminds himself. Because he's a class clown, a goof, terrible at math and great at smiles, and he knows how to reduce the hands that hurt his classmates to nerveless lumps of twitching flesh that will never stop screaming.

  
   His lip twitches up in the mirror, and Kaminari grins wide enough to bare too-white teeth at himself, running his tongue long and slow along the edge of his smile before rolling his eyes with a huff and reaching for the makeup remover.

  
   He knows he looks good, and that's enough for now.

**Author's Note:**

> Honestly, this has little consistency and is mostly me shoving head canons into the world. Fly, my pretty little dork. Sociopathic metrosexuals who pass ethics class by writing what others want to hear can be heros too.
> 
> This was inspired by the idea of Traitor!Denki, except for the part where I don't think he's the traitor, so I decided to give him the personality equivalent of Shinso's quirk. It's a lot more subtle though, and I'm not sure if anyone has caught on to him yet.
> 
> Also also:  
> A lot of the kids don't make sense to me as front line fighters. They're training under Aizawa, has no one thought to put Hagakure through stealth and observation training? She's a bit of a joke character, but she can be more. Denki Kaminari can't go wild without blowing his fuse, so why is he trying to charge in guns blazing when he can play honeypot? Yeah, yeah, shonen show, maybe I like Black Widow too much, but the potential is there.


End file.
